Part 1: How to start on the warrior path. Training for Warriors Portland

If you're reading this, you are on your way to becoming a warrior.

You are on the path... or at least, you WANT to be on the path to bringing forth the warrior within. What exactly does that mean? Here at Training for Warriors Portland, I have a definition that will resonate with everybody on some level.

All of us have someone in our lives, who is the most reliable person that they know. We know that this person is always going to show up on time, they'll always show up for somebody when needed, and you can always count on them- they're extremely steadfast!

Somebody who's loyal, through thick and thin. Things could be going really bad for them, and really good for you... but they're not gonna hold that against you or feel slighted. They're going to feel proud of your accomplishments! They're extremely loyal, and they're not going to leave you for better or for worse. They're inspirational. Their actions speak volumes to their character. They inspire you to not only be a better person, but also the best version of yourself. They're compassionate. They have a positive impact on every person that they know. They're able to help out and deliver some value, whether it's just love, money, time, or belief. They're generous. They're successful. They're good at what they do and they like doing it.

They're fit. They're in good shape, have a lot of vitality, and have a high quality of life. And they're extremely fulfilled, overall.

We all know someone like that. My goal (and your goal) of bringing out the warrior within, is to make you that person.

The goal is to make YOU the most reliable person that you know, to make YOU the most inspirational person that you know, the fittest, the most loyal, and the most compassionate. The reason this is important is that YOU are the person that you're going to be around throughout your entire life... and you'll never get away from yourself! Therefore, it's pretty important that you make the most of your potential. When you do that, you've brought forth the warrior within.

If you're reading this, you're probably interested in getting more fitness by improving one of these three areas:

1. Body composition

Regarding body composition, how much muscle do you have on your body? How much fat do you have on your body? And does that ratio make sense, or is that helpful? And these factors are closely related to one another. When you improve one, you usually improve the other.

2. Health risk

We also want to know if there are any risk factors like: blood sugar, glucose levels, and blood pressure, etc... How high is your cholesterol? What are your risk factors for those indicators?

3. Performance

One of the things that we do at Training for Warriors Portland, is we define health as having a great amount of vitality. High vitality=energy, or performance. We measure that by how many push-ups you can do, how fast you can run, et cetera. That's performance and vitality.

There's probably one or more area of your physical life that you really wanna change or improve. And that's good! Now, it's time to start thinking: where do you wanna go, and where are you starting from?

In order to understand how the journey begins for you, the most important thing to pinpoint is: where is your starting point? This means defining your health as it is now and getting an idea of your baseline, looking at those 3 areas of your health: body composition, health risk, and performance.

If you're on a training program that makes you succeed in one area, but doesn't help the other two, well... that's probably not the right program for you. One example might be: You lose a bunch of weight, but you feel like garbage, you're tired all the time, and you got high blood pressure. A holistic program will help you in all those different areas. That's the beginning of the conversation that we want you to have with yourself on your fitness.

You want more energy, focus, endurance, strength. You wanna be able to do the things you wanna do WHEN you wanna do them. What I always say is, if the world requires you to be this strong, then you gotta be stronger than the world is asking of you on a daily basis. That's because you want to be prepared for that one unexpected moment when you're playing soccer and you fall in a gopher hole, or when you're taking your bike off the roof of your car and you slip. You want to be STRONGER than that moment will ask of you. If life asks you to be THIS strong and you're only THAT strong, that's often when you get injured or hurt.

Your goal might be one of the following:

Being strong

Be able to do the activities you want, like having enough energy to play with your kids

Having the focus to get your work done when you have the time of work

For some of us, it's to look better naked, and to get some sweet abs. Someone else may want to look jacked and tan... I don't know!

YOU get to decide the way that you want your body to look, or what you want your body to do. The important thing is that you know and that you are in love with it. It's not about what I want or what anybody else wants for you. Once you have your goal, you can start looking at your holistic program.

At Training for Warriors, we coach the whole mind, the whole body, and the whole spirit. For us, our program encompasses six pieces, and that is:

Training, which comes down to the kinds of movement that you do, whether that's weights, or running, or stretching, etc. It's the kind of training and the stimulus that you get for your body.

Nutrition: quality and quantity. Your goal will help determine, and where you're starting from will help determine the quality and the quantity of food that you need. The quality and quantity of food that goes into you determines your nutrition.

Your sleep AND your breathing. You determine how much rest that you get when you're not training. The way that you breathe during the day, the way that you breathe when you're resting, when you're training, when you're sleeping, has a big effect on how you recover. Yogis have been talking about breath for thousands of years, and what we know is:

While you're training, your breath should support power

While you're resting, your breath should support rest. We're gonna make sure that you utilize both of those breathing types here at TFW Portland.

Hydration. This goes hand in hand with nutrition a little bit. The amount of water you drink has a lot to do with how nourished you are, which is can be determined by your overall hydration, but also mineralization. Drinking lots of water is great but when you drink TOO much water, you're not hyper-hydrated. Rather, this condition is called hyponatremia, which means that you don't have enough nutrients. You've diluted the minerals and the vitamins in your blood so that your body is not able to recover as well and your body systems are taxed.

Finally, your thoughts and your words, AKA your relationships with yourself and with other people. The quality of your relationships will often determine the quality of your life.

Those are the six areas of health that we talk about consistently here at Training for Warriors. The program that you're currently working through, or the one that you're checking out, is going to cover all of those areas to some degree. We're going to lean heavy on training, after all, this IS Training for Warriors. But we will talk about all of these components... and if you follow the plan, you will improve your quality of life, and definitely bring forth the warrior within.